World War 1 - The Western Front Association

ADVANTAGES

By 1917, the Russian Army's officer corps was increasingly demoralized by the poor progress of the fighting. Though grossly outnumbered, the Germans had proven to be dangerous and cunning opponents, and the Russian royal family's unfortunate intervention in affairs did not improve anything. The repeated catastrophes suffered by Russian field armies squelched what patriotism had existed three years earlier, slowly allowing the entire governing system to fall apart. By March of that year, some Army units began ignoring their orders, a situation made worse as growing Communist rebel groups exaggerated reports of minor events such as the revolt of a Russian Guard depot formation at Petrograd (this famous mutiny was carried out by trainees and depot troops, not by fully trained Imperial Guardsmen). After the Tsar abdicated his throne that same month, a provisional government was formed with Alexander Kerensky at its head. He made a short-lived attempt to uphold Allied obligations by putting General Brusilov in command of another offensive against the German Southern Army in Galicia. But despite his best efforts, Brusilov's 1917 offensive only cleared a few mutinous Austrian formations out of the way before running into the brick wall of German general's Hoffman and Hutier, who first held off, then counter-attacked the hesitant Russian troops. This was the last straw for the Imperial Russian Army, which virtually disintegrated as open civil war swept like a wave across Russia.

As the Communist revolt accelerated, both sides of the civil war continued sporadic negotiations with Germany. The Germans, who continued making territorial gains (marked 2), eventually began aiding the pro-Tsarist White Russian forces, attempting to stem the very revolt they had helped to foster. However the damage to the Russian infrastructure was too great, and the "White" Russians were eventually forced from power by the "Red" Communists. The treaty of Brest-Litovsk was finally concluded with the new Bolshevik government on March 3, 1918, stripping their country of all provinces west of the Ukraine. That treaty was annulled by the Armistice of November 11, and the new government in Moscow eventually re-established its presence in all of the previously held lands. Ironically, one of the lasting actions by the Bolsheviks was the attempted indoctrination of German prisoners-of-war. Many of these troops were eventually transferred to the Western Front which was still raging in 1918, but some of them were virtually useless as soldiers. When the war ended, they returned to Germany, where many threw themselves into the post-war revolution then tearing at Germany's social fabric. The opposing fascists eventually gained control of the country and added further tragic chapters to the history of Russia and Eastern Europe.

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The German Commander-in-Chief, Erich von Falkenhayn, now put into action his plan to "bleed white" the French Army. He intended to isolate a section of the front-line which the French would not allow to fall, and then assure that the area was ringed by the heaviest artillery coverage available. His target was the ancient French fortress of Verdun, which his troops first assaulted on February 21 after the most concentrated bombardment of the war (marked 1). Falkenhayn however, correctly divined that his subordinates would not likely agree with such a "bleeding white" plan, and so he did not share with them his intent to purposefully avoid capturing Verdun itself. He thought that he could control the pace of the German advance, and hence the advance on Verdun itself, by withholding the vital reserves upon which his subordinates relied. Because of this appalling policy of calculated ignorance, attacking German field commanders launched wave upon wave of stop-at-nothing assaults against the Verdun fortresses without knowing that their attacks would not be followed up. The campaign carried on for five terrible months, during which 300,000 Germans and 460,000 French became casualties. This series of battles, one of the greatest slaughters in history until that time, did not achieve Falkenhayn's goals, because his men, who had been trained to attack, continued attacking against all odds in the mistaken belief that their efforts would be followed up. The French were indeed "bled white," but not as severely as hoped, and the Germans ultimately lost many of their best troops.

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IntroductionThe Russian Army of World War One has become notorious for its reputation as a large, ill-equipped force, yet in 1914, Russia's Imperial Troops were actually well trained and equipped. The real problem with the Russian Army lay in its inadequate transportation infrastructure, which was not able to supply and maintain Russian field formations at wartime establishments. As far as equipment was concerned, the average Russian soldier in the 1st and 2nd Line had sidearms, rifles and machine guns equal to his German counterparts, and probably superior to the Austrians. The standard Russian Field Guns, the 76.2 mm and 122 mm, were robust enough to be used in World War Two and still be in reserve units in the 1980's.

Because of the many logistical disadvantages under which they labored, the Russian Army High Command had maintained a lively pre-war debate over what action would be taken in case of war with Germany. By 1910 it was decided to launch major offensive operations immediately upon the outbreak of any war. This decision clearly catered to the "spirit of the offensive" which then pervaded European military thought, and in pursuit of this doctrine, most Russian fortress units were deactivated. The age-old Russian strategy of defense-in-depth supported by counteroffensives was cast aside in favor of the latest trends. This was to exact a brutal toll in Russian lives, which in turn helped to spur later unrest.

The Austro-Hungarian Army of 1914 had been starved of proper equipment and resources throughout the pre-war period. It was also composed of an increasingly nationalistic soldiery, three-quarters of whom were from Slavic recruiting districts. The reluctance of these troops to follow Austrian officers into combat against their Russian brethren became a major liability, especially after the enormous losses suffered during the first year of war. The main German armies in the East operated with characteristic Teutonic efficiency. Indeed it was here that their troops enjoyed the luxury of fighting the battles of maneuver for which they had been trained. The Russian front also saw the rise of the great German "artillery virtuosos" of the war, men such as Lieutenant Colonel Georg Bruchmüller. Lieutenant Colonel Bruchmüller was capable of orchestrating artillery firepower with ferocious efficiency, but more importantly he undertook aggressive training measures to assure near perfect coordination between the artillery and infantry branches of the army.

The Western Front (1914-1918) - BBC - Homepage

These conditions triggered a complex and difficult to trace series of evolutions in both battlefield tactics and technology. The Germans responded by creating what amounted to modern combined arms squad tactics, something their French and British opponents initially brushed off as infiltration tactics. After a long period of grim failure, the British managed the mass deployment of a new weapon called the tank, which also changed the nature of warfare and helped break the brutal deadlock of position warfare. The French adopted both of these methods and weapons, applying them is a combined form which appealed to the French leadership. It was however, Germany which finally succumbed to the drain of economic warfare, and by October of 1918, German field commanders declared that the war was militarily lost, and that a truce must be sought. From that point on, it was only a matter of time, and the end came on November 11, 1918. The Great War ended, having caused millions of deaths on the Western Front alone. Europe and the world would never be the same.

The Eastern Front — 1914 - 1917

On July 1, 1916, the British and French launched the Somme Offensive (marked 2). This offensive, which put an end to any German thoughts of continuing the Verdun Offensive, was launched against some of the heaviest German fortifications on the entire Western Front. The British commander, Field-Marshal Douglas Haig, protested the idea, but the French commander Joffre won the debate and the campaign was begun. This campaign saw the first use of tanks, and was preceded by the war's greatest artillery barrage. Despite these advantages, the general slaughter of allied troops which occurred is famous, with the British suffering 65,000 casualties on the first day alone. When the October rains finally put an end to the prolonged carnage, 400,000 British, 200,000 French and 450,000 Germans had become casualties! The Allies only captured a few miles of ground, and the Germans soon withdrew to their new Hindenburg Line in early 1917 (marked 3).